Kaloma Cardwell. Courtesy photo

This article has been updated with a statement from Davis Polk.

A black former corporate associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York sued the firm Monday for racial discrimination and retaliation, alleging the firm's leaders denied him opportunities to work on substantive deals and gave him bad performance reviews as a pretext for his 2018 firing.

Kaloma Cardwell, a University of California, Berkeley School of Law grad who joined Davis Polk in its associate class of 2014, claims that, soon after he arrived, he was left off important emails and denied opportunities to advance his career. He was the only black male in his class of over 120 associates, his suit said, which also cites Chambers statistics stating less than 1% of Davis Polk's partners are black.

He said he raised concerns about discrimination he had experienced with senior staff and attorneys at the firm, including former firm chair Thomas Reid, multiple times in his four years there.

A Davis Polk representative defended the firm. "Mr. Cardwell's termination had nothing to do with his race," the firm said in a statement. "He was terminated for legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons. The claims lack merit, and the firm will defend the case vigorously."

In an 86-page complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Cardwell, who is represented by attorneys David Jeffries and Martin Restituyo, said in 2015, several colleagues praised him as hardworking and competent. But in his official performance review in December 2015, and at subsequent ones, he was given confusing criticisms that couldn't be backed up with examples, Cardwell said.

Around mid-2016, Cardwell said he noticed that he was given less work on the kinds of deals that fill out a lawyer's resume and form the basis for him to advance. Instead, he said, he was stuck with relatively unimportant tasks, such as reviewing a client's indemnity agreements, some of which could have been done by a more junior lawyer. Even that tapered off; by January 2017, he was being given only around two billable hours' worth of work per month, he said.

"The evidence indicates that plaintiff didn't merely slip through so-called cracks in Davis Polk's staffing system; rather, defendants repeatedly dug a hole that would be almost impossible for plaintiff to climb out of," the suit said. "Defendants' decision to not fully or properly staff plaintiff and to increasingly stop communicating with plaintiff during the second half of 2016 cannot be reasonably explained by plaintiff's performance."

Cardwell said the firm was notified in May 2017 that he had hired Outten & Golden to represent him in connection with his discrimination allegations, which prompted him to be assigned to his first M&A deal in eight months. In August 2017, he said, he filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and he received a right-to-sue letter in August 2019.

In February 2018, Caldwell said, he was told by two Davis Polk M&A attorneys that he was being terminated. One of the partners was uncomfortable with the decision to terminate him, saying, "We don't feel good about this. … If I were you, I would be furious and unhappy and bitter." His last day at the firm was Aug. 10, 2018.

The suit includes claims for racial discrimination, retaliation and harassment under federal, state and New York City discrimination laws. It names Davis Polk, Reid and six other current and former partners as defendants.

A representative for Comcast, where Reid is now general counsel and senior executive vice president, didn't immediately return a message for comment.